


Ficlet: Fucking Time Travel

by FogOfWar



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Bobby SInger - Freeform, Canon Universe, Dean Winchester - Freeform, Implied Character Death, John Winchester - Freeform, Mild Angst, POV Dean Winchester, POV First Person, Sam Winchester - Freeform, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-30
Updated: 2013-04-30
Packaged: 2017-12-10 00:31:29
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,000
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/779735
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/FogOfWar/pseuds/FogOfWar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It was the summer of '87, four-and-a-half years after we'd had to say goodbye to Mom, goodbye to a normal apple pie life, when Dad went missing...</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ficlet: Fucking Time Travel

**Author's Note:**

> Dean's POV.  
> [[tumblr](http://thefogofwar.tumblr.com/post/46944763360)]

  
When I was growing up, Dad had always told me that any time he was gone longer than he said he would be on one of his hunts, to call Bobby to come and get Sam and me. No exceptions, don't delay even a single day, call immediately. I guess I always kind of knew what that could mean.

I was 8, but I had to grow up fast back then; had my first sawed off shot gun in sixth-grade, had to make my first kill - a Vampire - even earlier than that. I was a soldier barely out of diapers, and I had mourned the death of my mother. I knew what dying was.  
  
So when Dad didn't come back for Sammy and me in that dingy motel after a three day MIA stint, I knew. Or I thought I knew. Every single time Dad was gone, I always closed my eyes and held Sammy tight and told him, ' _It's gonna be okay, no matter what happens, I'm not going anywhere._ ' Because every time I wondered if it'd be the last - every time I expected to never see Dad again.  
  
That was just the way life was back then.  
  
It was the summer of '87, four-and-a-half years after we'd had to say goodbye to Mom, goodbye to a normal apple pie life, when Dad went missing. I remember calling Bobby and telling him that Dad had been gone for a few days longer than planned, and I remember even now how that must have bothered him, because I'd said those words as if I'd had to say it ten-thousand times, and I knew the weight of every syllable despite my age. Because to myself I had said those words and prepared myself for the day I figured would come sooner or later. By some miracle it didn't come till I was in my twenties but not once during all those years did I ever stop feeling the looming prospect of Dad leaving Sammy and me. I conditioned myself for it.  
  
  
That year I thought we'd lost him. Dad was gone for over a month, longer than any time before then since Mom's death. Bobby knew the details of his hunts and trips, but John had made him keep his word on not telling us what was going on if he could help it. I knew some things, of course. I knew a lot more than Sammy knew for most of the kids' childhood. Dad was training me, after all; Hell, I was shooting guns when I was big enough to hold one.  
  
' _We'll get your Dad back, son_ ,' Bobby had told me while I turned around and paid lip service to my little brother so he never realized this was unintentional on Dad's part. I figure that entire time Bobby was trying tooth and nail every day to get John back from wherever it was he went off to, whether he be dead or alive.  
  
Then one day, Dad showed up at the shack, wearing very strange clothes and looking... well, but troubled and very tired. He'd hugged Sam and me tighter than he ever had, and told us everything was alright and that he missed us more than we could ever imagine. That night I snuck out of bed, because Bobby and Dad were downstairs talking for _hours_ over whiskey. Dad was crying when I saw him while peeking over the rail of the staircase, trying not to make a sound. I had never seen him cry, even when Mom died. No - when she passed away, a dark anger manifested itself in him and he quenched heartache with rage and need for vengeance before he ever let a tear fall down his face.  
  
It had terrified me, seeing my Dad, this man that had been so strong, so infallible, my _leader_ , crying in front of Bobby and drinking straight from the nearly empty bottle. I hadn't stuck around long enough to truly listen to what was being said, which in hindsight was a saving grace, I reckon. I never asked, and my Dad nor Bobby never discussed it. Life went on as usual, or as usual as things could get in our fucked up lives. I spent my _whole life_ never knowing what had happened, why Dad was gone for so long, why he was crying that night.  
  
  
Until now.  
  
  
It made sense now, how Dad had known so much, about Sammy being Lucifer's vessel, his cryptic last words of ' _Save Sam, and if you can't, you have to kill him._ ' How somehow he knew how everything would play itself out and with that knowledge, on his death-bed was warning me, trying with his last breath to spit in the face of fate and live by fuckin' free will because that was what Dad believed in, that was what kept him going every single damn day. That Sam and I could still _choose_. He couldn't stand it if he didn't _try_ to change fate, _try_ to stop all the shit that happened so that whatever he had seen wouldn't come to fruition.  
  
So we could be spared from it all - spared from a future of growing up to be things that John would weep over.  
  
  
Dean's jaws clenched slightly with a faint flex of muscle under his scruff. His arms, cloaked in his weathered leather jacket were tucked tightly across his chest as green eyes watched the raven-haired man carefully inspect the decades-old '67 Chevy Impala that was parked near Bobby's front porch.  
  
The young and fair faced thirty-three year old John Winchester ran light fingers along the hood, the pads of his fingertips squeaking against the highly polished jet black sheen. "So you're saying it's older than _me_ in this year and it's still in this good of condition? You really took great care of it."  
  
  
Dean swallowed against the knot in his throat, pinpricks of little needles stinging his eyes as he nodded mutely.  
  
 _Fucking time travel._  
  
  



End file.
